Don't Be the Minotaur

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Teaching the myth of Theseus to 9th graders is a wonderful opportunity.  Their lives are social mazes to which they often lack a solution.  Our role as teachers is to provide the ball of wool that will enable safe navigation. 

Too often, however, we become the minotaur, intent on devouring the boys and girls that are sent our way.  These children become sacrificial lambs to the monster of our own egos or stubbornness.  Particularly in the realm of technology, we tend to hold onto our tried and true solutions, hesitating to recognize that those solutions only work for far simpler mazes.  The flow and availability of information coupled with the collaborative nature of learning make for intricate designs and near impossible exits for the students of the present and future.  As Mitchel Resnick wrote; "However, schools are only one part of a broader learning ecosystem.In the digital age, learning must become a daylong and lifelongexperience. National education initiatives should aim to improve learning opportunities not only in schools, but also in homes, community centers, museums, and workplaces."
Too academic?  it is also the challenge Cobb firstlays out for Ariadne (!) as her 'interview' in the film Inception  demonstrating that the mazes of the present are complex - unable to be solved by simple formula or rote definition.

As the Great American Teach In approaches, and students, educators, administrators and communities prepare to reflect on ideal learning environments, how many participants will identify their current paradigms as labyrinthine?  Our challenge as educators/parents/students is to construct webs and pathways, networks and connections that will allow free entrance and exit through the mazes we face on our learning journeys.

Song of the Open Road

" Allons! the road is before us!
  It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not
      detain'd!
  Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the
      shelf unopen'd!
  Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn'd!
  Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
  Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the
      court, and the judge expound the law.

  Camerado, I give you my hand!
  I give you my love more precious than money,
  I give you myself before preaching or law;
  Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
  Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?"
-"Song of the Open Road", Walt Whitman

Though Whitman clearly did not know of Personal Learning Networks, my experience dipping my toes into this world of opportunity reminds me of his words.  In an age of digital footprints and multimedia interconnectivity, it seems we are constantly being invited to a journey of newness and discovery.  Simultaneously, the old paradigms (papers, books, tools, teachers) are being reinvented or left behind. 

Perhaps Harold Bloom's words, "If you are American, then Walt Whitman is your imaginative father and mother", ring as true for the digital age as they might have for previous generations.  As before, we find ourselves on a road with no fixed destination, no fixed route, a road marked by plurality and equivocity rather than singularity or univocity. 

The lesson I hear is quite clear: tweet, blog, collaborate, create, share, but whatever you do - get out on that road.